As well known in the art, a track system may be installed on a wheeled ATV (or other wheeled recreational, industrial or agricultural vehicles), to provide an—at least partly—, temporarily, tracked ATV.
The resulting contact area between an endless belt of the tracked vehicle and the underlying ground surface, referred to as patch, is larger than the contact area, or patch, of a corresponding wheel of the vehicle when wheeled on the underlying ground surface, thereby increasing flotation of the vehicle, over smooth terrains such as snow for example.
A drawback is that, generally, this increased contact patch involves an increased area of friction, which needs to be opposed for steering. As a result, it is increasingly harder to rotate the patch around a pivot steering point and steering effort submitted to such a tracked vehicle is higher than to a corresponding wheeled vehicle, i.e. the ATV on its wheels for example.
Using endless belts having a curved transverse geometry allows reducing this problem by allowing an increased contact surface when needed, while maintaining a reduced contact surface on hard surfaces for example.
However, there is still a need in the art for a track assembly for an all-terrain vehicle.